Welcome to the Proposals Library of AltKuznets Advisors Pvt Ltd., Your Sustainability Nirvana !

Consumer Activism Vs Energy Economissm ? Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Ever so often, we come across those occasions when our professional prudence is extended and challenged by ethical dilemmas. Physicians weighing the pros and cons of referring a patient for a procedure or to a specialist not unaware of the gain to their practice; an HoD extending the PhD program of a candidate to squeeze out a couple more semesters of teaching to avoid a costly faculty recruitment; even policymakers and bankers winking lagged-asynchronously with the RBI when it comes to monetary moves that shake up the bourses. But would it be 'harakiri' of an Energy Economist to break the bounds of his discipline, tear the fence of professional decency and question the  logic of revised power tariffs - self-interest or otherwise? Just the past month, the Chief Minister of TN proposed the revised power tariffs applicable for various classes of TANGEDCO customers. Surprise, surprise....N...

Regulatory Lines and Cost-Benefit Lessons Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Trekking is for lovers, or so one would believe. Why else would anyone walk miles of treacherous serpentine paths to be stung by spines and bees, suffer sunburns and risk exhaustion, only to turn around and walk what would be the equivalent of twice those miles? Brett though, was an exception. His love for trekking was an expression of his freedom, and distaste for the mundane and the routine. Working for the Strategy Group within the Industry-Government Regulatory Panel, IGRP, was supposed to be a breeze. Some considered it a liaison job and looked down upon him, but Brett, the Regulator on the Panel, did not care to stoop low and respond. Instead, what bothered him now, as he ambled along the trekking path, was the perpetual pressure to come up with new concepts and ideas that were at the same time incrementally more efficient, more equitable, and did not engender externalities. Ain’t that t...

Half-Money, Full Sustainability! Ganga Prasad Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar The media was full of news – of the wrong kind. Food colors and flavors poisoning the young yet growing their brains, muscles, and bones (Kidneys are disposable, aren’t they? Hey,…what are stem cells for!). Plastic bags choking every drain, nook and corner of our commons. Detergents with chemicals so toxic they put nuclear materials to shame. Untreated effluents and solid waste despoiling the rivers and our landscape. Industries, caught in the capitalist ‘more profit’ trap, shunning every social responsibility to fulfil the lifestyle expectations of investors abroad. There was no resolution to the problem despite much talk, reams of paper, twitters, blogs, even U-tube videos. Wasn’t anyone smart enough to find a common denominator across these seemingly disparate issues and design a strategy that addressed them together, simultaneously? Perhaps the media does affect our sensibilities, for an idealist who ...

Boursing My Way to Utopia ! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar ….And Alice woke up, all blurry-eyed, not remembering a word of what she had penned while in Wonderland. After staring and blinking a few seconds, she dozed off again in to another dream, this time just as exotic. Yes, something wasvery ‘grotesque’. The entire global financial system was in disarray. Panic ruled the markets.Buffeted between fears of currency crisis, global depression, and sovereign default, the entire financial community was looking for deliverance from their Messiah. But would the Messiah deliver on their pleas? Call it the Big Lord’s design, Satan’s test of character, or cruel fate, but the Messiah was none other than a half-baked, unemployed albeit worldly-wise Economist, who, oblivious to the utter desperation in the financial community, fancied his hand at putting the world in order, and blog his resolution to the travails of the global markets. And, pray, what was his message? The Mes...

Pull a punch, Will Ya? Not This Round ! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar These days, even the guy on the street is familiar with global warming, climate change, emissions taxes and emissions credits. After decades of wrangling, it is perhaps safe now to openly support (without triggering ‘RTI hits and FOIA misses’!) the claim that fossil fuel use has induced and accelerated climate change. Economists, ever so prescient, have proposed various schemes – from per capita emission limits to tradable, bankable emissions credits. Why, and notwithstanding the currency crisis, there is even a European Carbon Credit Trading market (that is when you trade Gouda cheese and thermal power emissions for Swiss cheese and home heating emissions!). But seriously, or more aptly, to tickle your cranial nerves, here’s one that you haven’t come across yet (unless someone smoked it outta me as I showered, and posted it before I trudged my last mile to the public computer center). So, what ...

Public Funding of the Election Dance? Try the ‘Rao Twist’ ! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar We may be between elections, but corruption is a perennial river - a river with many sources, one dirtier than the other, each seeking the rainbow, and, both the setting sun on the horizon and the rising moon as the serpentine merges in to the confluence of the sky and the sea. Elections, doubtless, are one of the largest of these corruption sources; the reason being that a change in government brings about changes in policy that affect large domestic business houses, VHNIs, and foreign industries, beyond impacting, in a fundamental way, the multitudes invested in stock markets and fixed assets. The consequent large shadow values attached to electoral results is the motivation behind many-a-backroom pre-election moves. Practically, every one of these moves is an underhand deal with payoffs arranged in one of the many discrete and not-so-discrete ways. So, what can we, as Anna...